Better Late Than Never: Yankees 4, White Sox 3 F/10

When the Yankees came up to bat in the ninth inning down 3-0 you probably figured, just like I did, that they’d go down in order as meekly as they had been doing most of the afternoon. But thankfully we all were wrong.

The Yankees just happened to wake up from their eight-inning long slumber in time to score three runs in the top of the ninth to tie the game and a big home run by Jacoby Ellsbury put them up for good in the top of the 10th.

The most remarkable thing about the ninth inning rally was that it was done with two outs. Alfonso Soriano hit a ground rule double down the line to score Ellsbury, Yangervis Solarte hit an RBI single to score Soriano and Brian McCann hit an RBI single to score Kelly Johnson who was pinch running for Solarte.

after Brett Gardner struck out and Derek Jeter grounded out, Ellsbury took the second pitch he saw from Zach Putnam just over the wall in right field to give the Yankees the lead.

David Robertson came in and did what every top notch closer does after he blows a save the night before: He struck out the side while giving up a meaningless single and earned his 10th save of the season.

Vidal Nuno, gave up three runs in the first but settled down after that. He struck out five, walked one and most importantly, he lasted seven innings which helped the bullpen.

And I really hate to be the person that says this as early as May 24 but I’m going to do it anyway…It was a big win for the Yankees but only in the sense that they needed it for their morale because going into Chicago and losing five out of six would have been disastrous. Now, that won’t happen.

Hopefully tomorrow, Masahiro Tanaka will rebound from his first loss, show the White Sox dat splitter and dat slider and the Yankees can end the Chicago portion of their road trip with a split at the Cell.

Stacey is co-Editor-in-Chief of It's About The Money, co-host of the It's About The Money, Stupid podcast and is a monthly contributor to ESPN's SweetSpot Blog. She is a former contributor at Aerys Sports and High Heat Stats. She has contributed to group projects at Baseball: Past And Present and the Hall of Stats. Her work has appeared in USA Today's Sports Weekly and most recently, she wrote four pieces for Derek Jeter: Celebrating the Yankees' Captain Clutch, a magazine printed by i5 Publishing.